


Advance Warning

by Footloose



Series: Loaded March EXTRAS [13]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, M/M, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Footloose/pseuds/Footloose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mechadragon's programming gets updated, but when Arthur and Merlin get caught <em>in flagrante delicto</em>, it's possible that the programming needs to be tweaked just a tiny bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advance Warning

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Prompt Request #2 Round for Loaded March Extras:
> 
> Prompted by mechadrakkon (LJ):  
> "The mecha dragon's POV while his owner is doing something silly? Or dangerous, or naughty, or just a typical day in the life?"
> 
> * * *

CORE:\startup.ini

_Loading..._  
 _Initiating boot-up sequence_  
 _... battery power verified 86% capacity_  
 _... servos verified functional_  
 _... core memory check initiated_  
 _\--- Sector 8 - 9 root sector sequence confirmed_  
 _\--- Clusters 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 fragmented.... defragmentation complete_  
 _... restoring last session parameters_  
  
 _Merlinware ACTIVATED_

The mechadragon roused from standby mode in a testing whir of servos and gears. Audio came on nearly at full blast before tuning down to ambient levels. Video flicked on with a snap.

RECOGNIZE: _Merlin_

The mechadragon chirped. Merlin wriggled his fingers in the air; the mechadragon reached out and grabbed a finger.

Merlin burst into a big grin. "Let's see how the new programming works out, yeah?"

The mechadragon chirped again. It let go of Merlin's fingers and sat back on its haunches, clacking its foreclaws together. It stretched out its wings; a few tools went rolling across the table. The laptop screen jiggled. Its tail curled and twisted in a clink and clatter, and the mechadragon tried to catch the tip as it swayed from side to side.

"Stay still," Merlin said. The mechadragon bowed its head; there was a dull click when Merlin connected the firewire. The mechadragon didn't like the firewire -- the line pulled him off-balance -- but it was the only way to directly access the core programming. There was wifi, but access was isolated to non-critical systems.

The mechadragon spread its wings, flapped them a few times, and gave up trying to adjust to a shifting center of gravity. It stretched and slumped down on the table, using the edge of the laptop as a pillow.

The CD/DVD holder popped out, hitting the mechadragon in the chest. The mechadragon, accustomed to the laptop's temperamental behaviour, slammed it back in, digging its claws into familiar notches to make sure the drawer didn't attack it again.

UPLOAD: _Receiving  
_ _.... 100% File size 1.6 MB  
_ _13% decompressed..... decompressing  
_ _Unpacking...  
_ _Installing....  
_ _Complete._

The mechadragon scratched its head after the core memory rebooted and connected to the peripherals. Its wings fluttered, its tail twitched, and it craned its neck from side to side, bumping the firewire into the laptop.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry. Let me get that off," Merlin said.

The mechadragon shook its head once free from the firewire. It spread its wings wide before turning its back on Merlin and scampering to the far edge of the table, curling up with a hiss.

"Would you rather I put the connection under your tail?"

"I knew you were a pervert, _Mer_ lin. I just didn't realize how deep it went."

RECOGNIZE: _Arthur._

The mechadragon whirred its best approximation of a purr at hearing Arthur's voice and finding a match in its database. It swung its head around until it spotted Arthur leaning over Merlin's shoulder, frowning at the laptop screen.

"Oh, shut it. You love me anyway," Merlin said.

"What's this now?" Arthur asked. "That's not -- is that even the Latin alphabet?"

"Not even close," Merlin said. "I thought it was a new font set the first time I saw it, but it's not. It's some sort of new encryption that I'm pretty sure no one else on the planet has."

"Where did you see it?" Arthur asked.

Merlin shook his head and shrugged. Arthur swatted the back of his head.

"Ow. You _arse_. What was that for?"

"We have the same security clearance now," Arthur said.

"I don't think it matters what security clearance you've got when I don't even know how to explain this code," Merlin said. "The Box won't crack it."

"And yet..." Arthur made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "You have enough of a code to program it into the flying rat --"

The mechadragon hissed a warning.

"-- the flying reptile, sorry. Jesus, Merlin, did you program it to react to insults?" Arthur scoffed. "Where did you get this?"

"I had to sketch them out from memory and digitize them. I'm not even entirely sure they're right," Merlin said, shrugging. He inputted a few commands into the laptop; the mechadragon responded by leaping from the edge of the table, climbing up the china cabinet, and perching itself at the top. "See, the thing is, I only ever got a look at this code once. Major Kilgarrah made me crack it by hand. I don't even know how I managed, there wasn't any math involved --"

"Wait. _Major Kilgarrah_ gave you this code?"

The mechadragon let its head hang over the edge of the cabinet, watching Merlin and Arthur. Merlin's shoulders were nearly to his ears, and he spread his hands.

"Not... exactly? He gave me a scrap of paper with a bit of code and told me to break it," Merlin said. "And for some reason, it mutated in my head and became a _thing_."

Arthur stood up straight, drawing away from Merlin, tilting his head. "It... mutated."

"Mutated." Merlin gestured wildly at the laptop screen.

"Into a thing."

Merlin again waved at the laptop, but the mechadragon perked up when it saw the motion include a wave in its direction. Its servos whirred, and its tail whipped and wagged from side to side.

"I don't know how your brain works and I'm not sure I want to," Arthur said, holding up his hands. He backed away slowly.

"You love me for my brain, you _prat_ ," Merlin said.

"Actually, that pert arse of yours has something to do with it," Arthur said, laughing. He turned away and disappeared around the corner --

_... accessing blueprints_

\-- to the kitchen. There was a rattling sound and the whoosh-thud of doors opening and closing, the clank of objects being placed on a surface --

_... locating house WIFI_  
 _... cracking encrypt -- located password  
_ _... accessing security feed_

\-- Arthur mixed two scoops of _[unrecognizable]_ into a blender. He dumped a cup of ice and measured out the water. The pulse grinded and rattled for _[54.98 seconds]_ before whirring at a decreased volume. Arthur turned it off, filled two glasses, and left the kitchen --

_... disconnecting security feed_

\-- and placed one of the two glasses next to Merlin's right hand. "You didn't have breakfast."

"'M not hungry," Merlin said. His brow was furrowed and he chewed the inside of his lip. "I think I've almost got it --"

The mechadragon's servos whirred, and it fluttered out its wings before powering down its main systems, devoting all the memory to the new packet software that Merlin had uploaded. The video feed shut down, the audio clicked off, and the mechadragon's limbs locked in a braced position as it followed the sequence programmed -- _hide, brace, decrypt_.

A subroutine triggered and the mechadragon's processors computed through the code that Merlin had just uploaded into its passive memory. A small percentage of its power output and memory was devoted to a subroutine for the motion detectors -- if a moving presence approached within five metres, the mechadragon's programming would activate, and it would get away. The motion detectors blipped, taking note of increased activity nearby, but none of it was close enough to knock the mechadragon out of standby mode.

The _decrypt_ module was composed of a blend of encryption keys from a small square device that Merlin kept putting into his backpack, but there had been a change in the core sequence to bypass the module in favour of the newest packet.

The newest upload to its core programming shifted the virtual space into a three-dimensional matrix, and symbols positioned and repositioned themselves into different configurations until there was a match according to a sequence across a grid. The rejection rate was high until the mechadragon's processors recognized a pattern and head learned enough about the symbols based on the criteria set in the programming to be able to organize the sequences in a discrete pattern.

It took seven minutes, forty-three seconds, and fifty-two microseconds before the symbols were properly sequenced. Decryption, however, stalled at 0.07%.

The sequence restarted. This time, it took six minutes, thirty-three seconds and eighty-four microseconds before the symbols were aligned in a new pattern. The decryption stopped at 0.02%.

The sequencing and decryption refreshed, but the end result was never any better than 3.23%. After one thousand failures, the subroutine broke out of its loop and returned an error. Almost simultaneously, the audio and video feeds activated.

There were soft sounds in the background, out of direct line of sight. The mechadragon categorically identified the sounds as moans and groans.

The gears in its body whirred until it was in a semi-standing position, its wings spread wide, its claws scratching and sharpening the metal in an imitated gesture of concern and anxiety that it had observed from Merlin.

There was no sign of Merlin.

The mechadragon immediately overlaid the new video feed with the last frame of video before it switched off. There were some noticeable differences. For one thing, the protein shake that Arthur had set on the table had been emptied, but the glass was knocked over. The tools were scattered, sheets of paper had been shoved over the edge of the table, a chair was on its side.

The mechadragon's internal _...alert_ flagged these as indicators of a struggle. It panned around the room until it spotted movement on the edge of its vision. It could hear a scuffle nearby.

The mechadragon skittered to the other edge of the cabinet, balanced on the corner, and craned its neck for a better view.

There were two bodies on the sofa, one on top of the other, larger and broader shouldered and obscuring the video, but there was enough data for the mechadragon to compile data points, extrapolate the missing information, and identify the person beneath.

Merlin.

The mechadragon's gears made a squealing, squawky noise before a second render of the video returned a result based on the other person's physical dimensions.

Arthur.

The mechadragon's programming dropped the alert rating, and it moved back to curl up onto the cabinet.

That alert rating shot up again a second later when it heard the familiar sound of the house alarm being bypassed for a front-door entry. It accessed the security feeds and --

 _IDENTIFY  
_ _... KAY  
_ _... PERCEVAL_  
  
\-- and its wings fluttered. 

They walked up the stairs from the front landing and into the living room.

"Oh for god's sake, _not again!_ "

Merlin and Arthur rolled off the couch, barely covered up by a blanket.

"We were just... Um..." Merlin grimaced, looking around the room. "Um."

The mechadragon grumbled and forwarded the results from Merlin's decryption to the laptop; the laptop beeped.

"Waiting!" Merlin exclaimed. "Waiting. That's what we were doing --"

Merlin scrambled out from under Arthur, dragging the blanket along with him. Arthur made a strangled sound and grabbed the pillows, covering himself up.

"I don't care what you were doing --"

" _Mer_ lin, get back here," Arthur shouted. Merlin's cheeks were red, and he made no eye contact as he slipped into his chair at the table.

"I don't want to know what you were doing, just, _someone_ , sanitize the bloody couch," Kay said, stalking off.

The mechadragon whirred and launched itself from the cabinet, gliding in a lazy circle before landing at Merlin's elbow at the table. It chirruped, reaching out for attention.

"Thanks, bud," Merlin whispered, shaking its extended paw. "Maybe some more advance warning next time?"

The mechadragon purred. It wasn't in its programming to alert Merlin of incoming, but it probably would be, soon.


End file.
